CANTO XIX
v. 1. The hour.] Near the dawn.
v. 4. The geomancer.] The geomancers, says Landino, when they divined, drew a figure consisting of sixteen marks, named from so many stars which constitute the end of Aquarius and the beginning of Pisces. One of these they called “the greater fortune.”
v. 7. A woman’s shape.] Worldly happiness. This allegory reminds us of the “Choice of Hercules.”
v. 14. Love’s own hue.]
A smile that glow’d
Celestial rosy red, love’s proper hue.
Milton, P. L. b. viii. 619
—facies pulcherrima tune est
Quum porphyriaco variatur candida rubro
Quid color hic roseus sibi vult? designat amorem:
Quippe amor est igni similis; flammasque rubentes
Ignus habere solet.
Palingenii Zodiacus Vitae, 1. xii.
v. 26. A dame.] Philosophy.
v. 49. Who mourn.] Matt. c. v. 4.
v. 72. My soul.] Psalm cxix. 5
v. 97. The successor of Peter Ottobuono, of the family of Fieschi Counts of Lavagna, died thirty-nine days after he became Pope, with the title of Adrian V, in 1276.
v. 98. That stream.] The river Lavagna, in the Genoese territory.
v. 135. nor shall be giv’n in marriage.] Matt. c. xxii. 30. “Since in this state we neither marry nor are given in marriage, I am no longer the spouse of the church, and therefore no longer retain my former dignity.
v. 140. A kinswoman.] Alagia is said to have been the wife of the Marchese Marcello Malaspina, one of the poet’s protectors during his exile. See Canto VIII. 133.